Plastic containers such as bottles of water are manufactured and filled according to different methods including blow moulding of stretch-blow moulding.
According to one of these known methods a plastic preform is first manufactured through a moulding process and then heated before being positioned inside a blowing mould.
The preform usually takes the form of a cylindrical tube closed at its bottom end and open at its opposite end.
Such a blowing mould typically comprises two mould halves and possibly a mould base.
The two mould halves are moved apart from each other in order to insert the preform therebetween. Next the mould is closed by moving back the two mould halves toward each other so as to enclose the preform within the mould.
The preform is then blown or stretch-blown along its longitudinal axis and radially so as to deform and come into contact with the inner walls of the mould, thereby resulting in a blown container.
Next the mould is opened again as described above and the blown container is taken out of the mould before a new preform is inserted.
In an industrial context there is a need to reduce the cycle time of the above-described operations.